


The Coffee Shop at the Beginning of Time

by skorpsion



Category: DragonFable (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 20:06:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18414920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skorpsion/pseuds/skorpsion
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a hero. Once upon another time, there was the same hero. And then another. And another, until they all made friends. And once upon a time, together, they made a coffee shop.





	The Coffee Shop at the Beginning of Time

“Right, so when I first met Wargoth, the actual Wargoth, it was actually him in his dream…”

“Wait, wait, wait. Hooooold up. Was this after, or before the part where we—I—uh, you met Fiamme?” ChronoZ scribbled a little diagram of the timeline so far on her napkin, the ink feathering to the point where it was practically illegible. With a scowl and a flicker of purple light, the napkin was replaced by a new one- or, well, the same napkin from before she ruined it by writing all over it. Somewhere to the far left, TimeKiller let out a low whistle at the display.

Chronomancer looked back at her with a stern expression, only slightly ruined by the visors obscuring both of their faces. “You really shouldn't do that,” he said while stirring his coffee. The spoon moved in circles without his hand even touching it. “That could destabilize the whole place.”

She just rolled her eyes and did it again, this time doodling something else on her napkin. He caught a glimpse of something rude before it was again washed away by purple, to never have happened to begin with.

Chrononancer wasn't really sure what he expected, and bit back a sigh. He supposed that if it were him, he wouldn't have listened either. And considering that she was him, it made sense. That didn't make him very happy, though. He reached toward his coffee, before recoiling at the sight.

Unnatural darkness intruded into the swirls of his pumpkin spice latte, and in an instant it was almost all but consumed by shadow. He scowled down into the cup, before waving his hand and a cyan lattice of gears opened up beneath his cup. The gears turned backwards, and his coffee was rewound to its former, shadowless state. Then he realized what he just did, and why that was a bad thing compared to his previous statement, and his palm met his face. Or it would have, if not for the visor in the way. Shadowwalker snickered at his predicament, and he could only respond with a dry, “Very funny.”

“Well, I don't feel very destabilized right now.” Shadowwalker was sitting rather far away from Chronomancer, by himself at his very own table. Even from the distance, though, he could see the mug was filled to the brim with inky black shadows that moved of their own volition, crackling like lightning while writhing like tendrils. Some of his disgust must have shown on his face, though, since Shadowwalker looked him square in the eyes and took a long, deliberate swig from the mug, before setting it back down. It didn't even seem like the level of shadow had changed at all, though, and still frothed at the rim. “Want some? I could always pour you another cup.” A lazy stream of darkness swirled around a taunting finger, and Chronomancer did his best to glare at him and hold his coffee close.

“I'll never understand how you drink something made of yourself,” he shot back. Still, he took a slightly desperate sip of his latte, which was still as pumpkin-spice-y as he liked it, to his great relief. “Haven't you considered getting a proper drink, considering we can get almost anything we want here?”

Shadowwalker shrugged back, taking another deliberate sip of his “drink”. The shadows within churned violently, threatening to overspill and escape their prison. “It's healthy.”

Chronomancer was getting ready to fire back another remark, though he wasn't sure _what_ kind of response he could give to that kind of statement—when ChronoZ cleared her throat, reminding him that he was in the middle of something, snapping him back to the reality that he was sitting across from his conversation partner. Not only that, but he had been ignoring her just to exchange banter with another version of himself. Embarrassed, he hoped the teal of his visor could at least hide some of his blush, and tried to ignore Shadowwalker snickering at him. “A-ah, please excuse me! When were we, again?”

“Meeting Wargoth, was that before or after Fiamme?” ChronoZ clicked her pen again, trying again on her napkin. It already had a large doodle scribbled on it that vaguely resembled a chickencow, leaving almost no space for actual notes. She started adding to the chickencow, instead of rewinding the napkin to actually take productive notes. Whatever.

“Right, right. Well, that was after, since I didn't really talk to him. Unless you do count Fiamme being possessed?”

“That sounds right.” The chickencow had a little crown now. “We didn't miss anything, did we?”

“Everything does line up with what we've all experienced so far,” Archivist said to his right, making him almost jump from his seat. It was the first time he'd spoken in a while, occupied by his book. He was probably never going to get used to that, hearing his own voice come out from someone else. Although, it wasn't really someone else, was it? “Take a look at what I have so far, just don't touch.”

The book slid over in front of him, though Archivist still kept it within arm's reach. Laid out in front of him, there was a neatly detailed timeline with dates and illustrations inked into the margins. Reading over the events and their descriptions, he could tell with even a skim that everything was exactly as he'd experienced it, almost like the Book of Lore Maya had written for him. It wasn't nearly as descriptive, but everything was there, as far as he could tell. There was his journey questing for the Elemental Orbs against Sepulchure, fighting the Super Mega Ultra Darkness Dracolich, meeting Wargoth and later rescuing Jaania, the Rose rising after he'd been unfrozen… almost everything, written down in neat print. It stopped right at his trip to Azaveyr, though he suspected it continued onwards to the next pages in the endless book.

“See here. Everything lines up perfectly with our experiences, almost no discrepancies. Or, well… my own experiences and what I can… decipher… from the others. You two have been helpful on that front, at least.”

Archivist turned to look at the others, and following his gaze, Chronomancer knew exactly what he was referring to.

There was Shadowwalker of course, still at a table by himself and still with that cup of shadow. Noticing his gaze, a little stream of shadow and decay escaped from inky fingers and swirled around the cup, before tendrils of shadow breached the volatile surface and outright waved at him, with a jaunty little motion. Chronomancer looked away first, ignoring the silent smirk that he knew was plastered across Shadowwalker's face.

There was TimeKiller, at her own table with Epoch. They were sitting across from each other as they usually did, when they weren't turned toward another table to watch. The two didn't seem to be paying attention to them, caught up with their own conversation. He took a chance and craned his neck so he could catch a glimpse of what drink Epoch had. It was hard to see it from a good angle, given she was facing away from him, but he caught at least a glimpse—swirls of bright pink and baby blue in a tall clear cup, to his eternal (heh, get it) relief. Timekiller was just drinking straight vodka, her shot glass occasionally flashing bright green before it was rewound to before she drank it. A good thing, too, since no one wanted to deal with a drunk Timekiller.

At the furthest table, though, sat Chronocorruptor. Avatar of Time was next to him, making drinks and keeping an eye on him. It was impossible to know what he was thinking or what he was doing, but he didn't want to socialize, so Avatar of Time kept him company. He had a cup with elaborate latte art drawn in the foam, but as far as anyone could tell, it was completely untouched, maybe because he didn’t even have a discernible mouth. Next to him, Avatar of Time was making drinks for just herself, since everyone else either wasn't in the mood for anything, or just used their time magic on their drink. Her own cup shifted almost continuously: one moment an orange drink, the next moment yellow, the moment after that something pale and white. None of them were familiar, but whenever he asked her about it, they were all extinct flavours of drinks and coffees that would never grace the world again. It was a little sad, and maybe just a little bit pretentious since usually coffee flavours went extinct for a damn good reason. Once, he'd asked to try her drink and gagged on the bitter, sour taste that was like a necromancer got their hands on an orange.

They were a strange bunch, he knew, but he wasn't exactly in a position to judge. After all, they were all the same person, even if some of those versions of him were edgy all the time or really needed better taste in drinks.

His own table, though, wasn't a great sight either. There was him, with his pumpkin spice latte and trying to figure out his own timeline. It was probably getting cold, so he rewound it just for good measure, making it just as perfect as the moment it was created and also defeating the purpose of stirring it earlier. Archivist sat next to him, poring over his ever-present book and occasionally taking notes. He drank big swigs of his black coffee, even though he could, in his words, “invoke the memory of caffeine” instead. Across from him, there was ChronoZ, holding a mug of… something. It was cupped between her hands in a tall mug, and looked a little bit like coffee, but he had no idea what it actually was. Supposedly, it was a complex and always shifting combination of milk, coffee beans, flavoured syrup, cocoa beans, ice, and espresso. Personally, he thought it sounded weird.

After spending a long few moment surveying… well, technically himself… he turned back to Archivist. “Decipher seems like the right word.”

“It would, wouldn’t it? After all, we’ve all lived the same life, so it would seem, so we'd know best.” His words caught the attention of ChronoZ, who looked up from doodling as the napkin again flashed with purple light. “Still, we’re all here, and none of us are exactly the same, despite the circumstances.”

“Show me that book, will you?”

Just to put emphasis on her point, ChronoZ made grabbing motions with her hands, and Archivist slid his book over to her—of course, first giving her a stern glare and a comment of, “Don’t you _dare_ touch anything in my book.”

She shrugged and leaned over to skim the pages. ChronoZ didn’t say anything out loud, but there was an expression of dawning realization on her face told the entire story. Or, well, the book told the entire story since it was literally written down, but whatever.

“You know what? This really does seem familiar.” She glanced up at Chronomancer, and he felt a shudder pass through him. Even through the purple dome that nearly completely shielded her eyes, he could tell that her gaze promised nothing good. “You’re really going to have to catch up with me about why you helped Sek Duat.”

“I—how—what?! That was _you_! Why are you blaming me for something you—” She shushed him by clapping a hand over his mouth. Maybe he needed a visor for his mouth, too.

There was a wicked grin on her face, the same kind of grin he used himself when he realised something very dumb and very funny. That didn’t help the growing feeling of dread, though. “See, what this book here says is that I wasn’t the only one who did it! Everyone in this room did it, so it can’t just be my fault, right?”

“Arch, tell her that’s not how it works!” He shot a desperate glance over, only to see Archivist wasn’t looking at them at all, instead writing more notes. Then he shot another, slightly more desperate, towards ChronoZ. “That isn’t how it works, right?”

He could just _feel_ the smugness radiating off her like an aura.

That just left one last option, one that never failed: change the topic. “Anyway, tell me more about whatever it is that you’re doing!”

“After surveying everyone here, I’m almost certain of it,” Archivist flipped the pages of his book, and he could glimpse more detailed notes of different events, with detailed illustrations of enemies and friends he knew personally. “From what I can gather, we all share identical main events in our timelines, even if some of our choices are different. The implications are fascinating; I could write an entire book.”

Chronomancer saw his chance and _ran_ with it. “What do you mean? You already have! Bahahahah!”

Too bad his joke was wasted on everyone else. ChronoZ, at least, was snickering behind her mug, but everyone else in the room was either otherwise preoccupied or willfully ignoring him. If they were all the same person with the same experiences, why didn’t they share the same sense of humour?!

The serious glare he got from Archivist made it all worth it though, who then sighed. “It does raise questions about my—your—our timelines, though. Speaking of which, we should get together sometime to figure out the pronoun thing. I can’t have this kind of inconsistency in my book, and it is getting confusing.”

He thought about it, then thought about it again because the first time didn’t make as much sense as he’d hoped it would. “You’re right, but I don’t want to wrap my head around it now.”

ChronoZ chimed in with a look of distaste and moderate boredom on her face, like she was being lectured by Lim again. “I don’t, either. We don’t? Us don’t? See, now you’re confusing me, too.”

“What she said!”

Chronomancer completely ignored Shadowwalker’s input, instead staring intently at Archivist’s closed book, whose owner seemed to be lost in thought. He could hear Epoch and TimeKiller privately giggling about something in the background, probably about something irrelevant, but he ignored them as well and took a sip of his latte.

He immediately spat it out. That was _not_ pumpkin spice, or any variant of it.

Inside his mug, there was a roiling not-quite fluid, darker than night and twice as violent. Its featureless surface twisted and heaved, and it wasn’t even coffee at all. The taste wasn’t something he had the vocabulary to describe, but it was cloying and felt like it would stick with him for a week. He grimaced before shoving the cup away entirely and glaring at the one who defiled his coffee, to Shadowwalker’s apparent delight. Off to the side, Epoch and TimeKiller were in hysterics, laughing and banging on their table together, so maybe he should have been paying attention to the two after all.

“Don’t worry too much,” ChronoZ said, leaning over to pat him on the shoulder. “He’s just you, right?”

He fought the urge to headdesk, and instead just tried to lay his face down. His visor knocked against the table when he did so, and he gave an internal, long-suffering sigh. It wasn’t even particularly foul or bad tasting, but there was just something _weird_ about the idea of consuming Shadowwalker’s shadows, willingly or not. It was a matter of principles, dammit!

Out of the corner of his vision, he could see magic that shimmered like golden sand, resolving into another mug. Avatar of Time hadn’t even taken his order, so he didn’t pick it up and start drinking it immediately, despite the urge to just let caffeine take him away.

“That better not be some kind of extinct Azaveyrian tea,” he growled, not even bothering to lift his head from the table. “I know what kind of stuff you drink.”

Watching the mug, he wasn’t surprised to see it surrounded by the same golden energy again, probably to transmute it to something else. The energy cleared away again, hopefully with something more to his taste. He lifted his head and took a cautious sip, and notes of caramel vanilla mocha met his tongue. That was more his speed, and he accepted the new drink. Glancing over to where his former pumpkin spice latte was, it was gone entirely, probably also thanks to Avatar of Time. He made a mental note to get her a gift basket of swords or something, something he would like receiving. Maybe some more swords, he couldn't imagine a version of himself that wouldn't want to get a free sword.

Looking around the room, everyone seemed preoccupied for the moment. There were a lot of moments ahead of them, considering the… unique relationship with time that each and every one of them had.

He elected to stay and finish his coffee, since Shadowwalker didn’t seem like he would do anything else. Looking off at the table, he appeared to be making shadow puppets on the table out of literal shadows, something he was actually a little envious of. Not that he’d ever admit it to his face, of course.

Archivist had his book out again, at a different chapter. It didn’t seem to be in a language he recognized, so it was probably one of those things related to his individual abilities. ChronoZ had moved to a different table entirely, chatting with Epoch and TimeKiller about something, and he considered joining the conversation. Then he decided he didn’t need that kind of headache, and finished the last dregs of his drink in peace.

“Well, I’m off to my own timeline,” he said after a moment. He shot a smile at his table companion. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it!”

“You say this every time, Chronomancer.” Archivist didn’t even bother looking up, mostly because he knew that an instant later, he would just reappear due to the convenience of time travel. “Have you considered coming up with a new joke?”

He smiled broadly, the bait taken. “All in due _time_ , my friend! Bahahah!”

And with a flash of cyan light, he was gone.


End file.
